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Well… it’s been pretty dead on this blog! I think it’s time to call it quits here. I’ve decided to start adding game reviews to Aqua Cure and gaming entries to my other blogs.

I’m not deleting this site or anything, and nothing is blocking bloggers from logging in. If you’d like to still blog here, feel free to! I might even come back later if it doesn’t work out elsewhere or if this picks up again.

But! In the meantime, I thought I’d put up a notice that I might not be using this site anymore. I still want to leave everything around as an archive though.

Edit: There have been too many bot login attempts, so I added an additional login prompt that uses a different user name. If you want to post again, just send me an email (cat@twilight-realm.com), and I’ll give you the login info for the first prompt that comes up.

Sooo… I’ve been pretty addicted to Recettear lately. I originally picked it up as a game I could play short bits of at a time, since the other games I’m playing are Assassin’s Creed 3 and LA Noire, which are harder to stop when I’m within a mission.

And well, now I’m just playing hours of Recettear. You play as Recette who has to pay off a debt her father has racked up. Tear, a fairy, comes to collect the loan, but seeing as Recette doesn’t have the means to pay it back, she suggests they open up an item shop, and thus… Recettear!

The game combines owning a shop to sell off your wares…

And also dungeon crawling, where you hire adventurers to help you so you can pick up the loot.

Some loot you can just sell as is and some are ingredients to fuse into even better items to sell.

You have a payment due each week that you have to make or else it’s Game Over. At first, I didn’t know how high the payment increased each week. It starts low at 10k, then 30k, 80k, 200k, and finally 500k.

I started by playing pretty casually. I’d enter dungeons often, unlock several of the adventurers, and fuse a lot of items. Unfortunately, going into dungeons takes up a lot of time. Though I had more fun this way, I ended up not making the higher payments.

Then I started over and focused on selling. I raised my merchant level and earned money faster, but… I went into dungeons less often, thus not unlocking as many adventurers or ingredients. I wish there was a better balance of the amount of time and the increase in payments.

If you Game Over, you start over at Day 2 with your money reset. Fortunately, you keep your unsold items, your merchant level, your adventurers’ levels, and your adventurers’ gear, so it’s not too terrible. Also, if you make the 500k payment at the end, you can play an “Endless” mode where you have no more debt.

So far I’ve spent over 30 hours on the game… I told myself I’d stop once I hit the last payment, but now the Endless mode is very tempting…

Long time no post! I’ve been on and off on playing games lately. Here’s a round up of stuff I’ve played recently.

Smashmuck Champions
This is the MOBA game we tried at PAX East, and we still find this game fun, especially the 5v5 modes. They recently released custom games, which makes it even more enjoyable since you can make games without newbies. Unfortunately, its biggest weakness is the size of its player base. Sometimes less than 20 people are on, with maybe 5 of them queuing. Some nights, it’s actually impossible to get into a game.

Bioshock Infinite
Did you know one of our bloggers worked on the game? (Our About page makes it obvious as to who it is.) So, even more reason to play it! Honestly though, I enjoyed Infinite a lot, more than the first Bioshock actually. The environments are beautiful. The combat is fun with a mix of guns, vigors, skyhook, and tears. Oh, and Elizabeth is pretty awesome. You don’t have to worry about her, and she actually helps you throughout.

Zero Escape
I want to like this game, but it really doesn’t have the same appeal as 999. I find myself getting bored with it, and I think there’s too many differing paths. I also don’t like the “incomplete” endings, where I have to go back to them later.

Snapshot
This is a nifty idea, where you take photos of items, and then you can use the items later on. However, I gave up on this game early on. I was trying to figure out how to get a secret item, and the only way I could think of felt too hacky and was really annoying to do. I dismissed the idea, thinking there’s no way that was the “right” way to do it. Turns out, it was. Yeah… that’s a no from me.

Assassin’s Creed 3
I’m not even playing as Conner yet, and I’m already annoyed at this game. I’m annoyed that I’m often magically teleported to a location when I start a mission (instead of letting me go there and explore on the way). I’m annoyed that I feel like I have less control over combat than past games. I’m annoyed that I’ve already done a couple escort missions. I’m annoyed that optional objectives have to be done in one playthrough for full sync. I’m hoping things get better once Conner actually enters the story.

Mario Galaxy 2
I got all the normal stars but not the extra world… which I might not do. The difficulty increases a lot between the normal galaxies and the extra ones. Overall, a fun game if you’re in the mood for a platformer. The game is still a bit gimicky, with too many moves mapped to shaking the Wiimote, but it’s not that bad most of the time.

Anyway, I’m trying to get myself to play more console games, since our consoles have been neglected lately. I’m hoping to start LA Noire on XBox 360 and God of War 3 on PS3 soon.

I finally got a 3DS XL (a pink one, haha!), and the first thing I decided to play on it is Theatrhythm Final Fantasy. This game is brilliant. It is like Final Fantasy meets Elite Beat Agents. It’s addicting, and I am enjoying the fact that I can play a rhythm game with FF music with some elements of RPG added to it.

Sorry, Tales of the Abyss, but I’ll be too busy with this game for a while!